Epicureanism
Epicureanism is a system of philosophy based upon the teachings of the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus, founded around 307 BC. Epicurus was an atomic materialist, following in the steps of Democritus. His materialism, combined with the fact that he sought to fight against superstition and ideas that miracles were a common occurrence lead many people in modern day to use him as a representative of atheism, or represent him as an atheist. However, he was not an atheist (and in some sense his views are almost a deconstruction of the idea of atheism) although it is true that his beliefs did differ very much from the traditional religion of the time. Epicureanism was originally a challenge to Platonism, though ultimately for most of its lifetime it ended up as the main opponent of Stoicism. In contrast to the stoics who sought to radically transform the world, epicureans commonly shunned both politics and evangelism, leading many to see it more as a personally taken on ideal, which while it could cause value to spread did not necessarily need to have it considered an imperative to do so. A good epicurean was seen as one whose life was not noticed substantially by others. They too had their own logic and epistemology that I won't bother going into, and will only deal with ethics and physics / theology. In the Renaissance, a resurgence of people trying to rebirth stoic and epicurean ideals as living ideologies, and mix them with Christianity happened. There was varying success for both. But stoicism as a living doctrine at this time tended to fizzle back out a bit, leading to no real active modern stoic philosophy except in smaller groups. Whereas epicureanism remained around in a smaller key, eventually having a wider influence (one way is by becoming part of the basis of utilitarianism), albeit one that is not always recognized. But the applications are wide enough that it can easily be considered inspirational from the perspective of every alignment, albeit for different reasons. Physics and Theology Epicurean physics was like the stoics equivalent to their theology. Though theology in concept played a smaller part to epicureans than to other groups. Atomism was a word for the idea that the substance that the universe was made out of was undivisible atoms which could neither be created nor destroyed. Forms can change, but not their inherent qualities, for change can only affect the shape the atoms took. The idea of atomism in epicureanism came from Democritus, who posited they have position, number, and shape. To Democritus' differentiating criteria, Epicurus adds "weight", but maintains Democritus' view that atoms are necessarily indivisible and hence possess no demonstrable internal space. Epicurus says that there are two kinds of motion: the straight motion and the curved motion, and its motion traverse as fast as the speed of thought. Although this concept may seem obvious to people now, it was certainly not so at the time, where many people assumed that substances were merely full mass with no empty space between it. Clinamen (or swerve) is the Latin name Lucretius gave to the unpredictable swerve of atoms. Although democritus who came up with the idea of atoms was a strict determinist, the epicureans believed that some indeterminism was inherent in physics itself. Something that would not be shown to be true (at least locally) until the time of quantum mechanics (Albeit in quantum mechanics there is less indeterminism than the epicureans believed). Souls Epicureans believed that everything in reality was made of matter, including the gods and human souls. Human souls were made of matter and resided within the body, but epicureans saw the soul as something frail, and which since it was made as the same matter of the body, dissipated on death, since it was too weak to exist without a body. As such, humans did not exist past death, and were not saved from dissipation by the gods. Note that at this time, and even now the word souls doesn't inherently mean something supernatural or non physical. Gods. Epicureanism emphasizes the neutrality of the gods, that they do not interfere with human lives. It states that gods, matter, and souls are all made up of atoms. Souls are made from atoms, and gods possess souls as humans do, but the distinction is that their souls and bodies are incorruptible and deathless, so they live forever unlike humans which eventually dissipate. Although Epicurus was against superstition, he took it for granted that entities in some sense like the ones described in the traditional religions probably existed “elsewhere” somewhere, due to the immense scale of reality. His position on them was more that that being the case doesn't necessarily have direct ramifications for humans, which is the more direct question to address. Some of the more humanistic neutral endings are actually probably closer to this than to atheism, since they obviously would concede that these gods exist in some sense, but want the human focus to not be too directly on them, seeing this as damaging and leading them away from their more primary concerns.In iva especially, where the neutral approach to gods seems to be for them to represent ideal end points, but are not things which should be worshiped per say or interacted with, it draws a relevant comparison to epicurus' idea that the point of thinking of the gods is to reflect on and emulate their sublime nature. Combined with saying not to fear them. The common quote about whether the gods are willing to prevent evil likely does not come from Epicurus, as it does not match well with his own beliefs (mainly, that he did not consider it an imperative of any kind to prevent evils, especially for the gods). Rather, he believed they were neither willing nor able to prevent evils, as they existed in realms distant from earth, and either do not know or do not care about it. This was not because they were malevolent, but because they lived in a perfect state of ataraxia, a state everyone should strive to emulate; it is not the gods who are upset by the goings on on earth, but humans. Likewise, these gods being already in this state had achieved perfect existence, and so had no interest in humans. As such, humans should not fear them, for judgment was something it would be nonsensical to expect for them according to the ethical system of epicurus, as there was no reason to punish evil, or in fact to seek out anything else once one exists in this sublime state. The Metakosmia, according to Epicurean philosophy were the relatively empty spaces in the infinite void where worlds had not been formed by the joining together of the atoms through their endless motion. Epicurus held that the metakosmia were the abode of the gods, far distant from interaction with humans, perhaps even knowledge of them. Religion. Epicurus saw sacrifice or ritual to the gods as of little value, and the superstition of worrying about their judgment to be harmful. However, as epicureanism was a philosophy openly posited to be only for those who would seek it out, worship of them was accepted as something to be expected from others. Rather than direct worship, they were to be looked up to as icons or representations of the perfect state of bliss that humans should seek to emulate, and so the fact of their existence, and pondering on their state still did have some use, albeit a limited one. Beyond this, they were more or less not focused on at all. Ethics Epicurean ethics. While epicurean ethics may seem like an odd term for what their actual ethics were, it should probably be noted that classical ethics corresponded more to what we now call value theory. Namely, the question of what is it that it is good for it to be in your life. Which is why even virtue ethics is about saying its good for you to be virtuous. The shift of the focus of ethics from how you should live, to what actions you should do towards others came later on. Hedonism is a term that is often misunderstood in modern dialogue, in part because what people associate it with is what the people who originally made the term did, but not necessarily what they defined the term as. Most simply the definition is simply that the only good is happiness, or rather that all goods must be in some sense a type of happiness or tied to it. This is obviously a vague statement, and can be taken multiple ways into different moral systems. The original hedonists (the cyrenaics, described below) were the ones who coined the term. They were the ones who the term in most casual use is associated with. They believed that the only good in life was your own happiness, and that this was all you need concern yourself with. So they believed in constant indulgence in order to maintain an elated state. Epicurus had a different philosophy. He believed that the best form of hedonism would be an ascetic form of hedonism. Which if that sounds like an odd contradiction, its because you probably associate the term with the cyrenaics. Epicurus divided pleasures into two types. Higher pleasures, and lower pleasures. Of these, lower ones were ones of pure sensation. Higher pleasures were ones which were more meaningful and valuable. Ones of love, friendship, and virtue, intellectualism, various things. Your relationship with others was seen as especially valuable. He also pointed out that the idea of constant indulgence making you truly happy was non sustainable long term, and probably not the best way to happiness. Rather that you needed to work on cultivating a long term serenity that would stay with you without constant need for spikes that trail off. He believed that these higher pleasures were the best way to reach this, but that focusing on maintaining a more serene mentality was the best way to accomplish this. He was also a negative hedonist. He strictly speaking thought that pleasure was only the absence of pain, and that there was a hypothetical zero point of 0 pain that was the absolute limit on best experience. Modern value theorists consider this mistaken however. This does not mean that he thought lower pleasures had no value, however, but rather that you should focus on higher ones. And some which may be lower in some instances may be higher in others. however, Epicurus was still an individualist hedonist. He thought the focus of your life was only your own pleasure. Which from modern perspectives is obviously considered selfish, but at the time this was in part since all of ethics was about your own life. Technically virtue ethics was about inner virtue as well, even though the definition of virtue is doing good things for other people Because at the time greeks conflated value theory and ethics together, with ethics asking what the good life was. While in modern philosophy these things are divided, saying someone's life could be good but them immoral. Epicurus was not trying to say to be openly selfish however, so he had to come up with a way to explain why not to be. And he had varying success. In part, one of his points was that virtuous pleasures are higher pleasures. So your own happiness' value in some sense is tied to being virtuous towards others. Like the stoics, he said that happiness would flow from virtue, but here he says the goal is the happiness, whereas they said it was the virtue. He also seems to have loosely bordered on a social contract type idea, where people's happiness depends on arrangements they make and comply with for mutual benefit, and so this is what the existence of external rules of conduct are. The problem here is that he insisted that you should not violate these external moral rules even if you could benefit from it and no one would know. Which opponents pointed out that technically nothing in his philosophy explicitly had a rule against. So while he defined himself as purely individualist hedonist, it seems he also implicitly thought that the social contract had a loose binding force as well. He summed up his version of the golden rule as "It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and well and justly (agreeing 'neither to harm nor be harmed'), and it is impossible to live wisely and well and justly without living a pleasant life." His use of the word justly implies that he believed some form of external morals existed that it made sense to comply with. Making a seeming contradiction that was noted even at his time. The point is that from his perspective, he didn't think he was trying to say to be selfish, and argued against the idea that he was. But based on what his philosophy was, you can easily note that that content was there. (And the fact that he advertised his philosophy as a personal thing rather than one to transform the world for good like the stoics meant it was obviously a little self focused). Which is why in the following centuries people openly blasted him for selfishness. Jews said that epicureans were those who would not have a place in the world to come. Christians were the one who represented epicurus with the quote he is now known for about rejecting monotheism, showing that they did not view him highly. Even dante centuries later depicted epicureans in hell. Other Practices The Tetrapharmakos or, "The four-part cure," is Epicurus' recipe for leading the happiest possible life. The "tetrapharmakos" was originally a compound of four drugs (wax, tallow, pitch and resin); the word has been used metaphorically by Epicurus and his disciples to refer to the four remedies for healing the soul. Its lines were “Don't fear god, (sometimes translated to as the gods, which is the more accurate, but less direct translation) Don't worry about death; What is good is easy to get, and What is terrible is easy to endure.” This being because death was seen as something you don't experience, merely a temporal border to you. So fearing it could be overcome. The gods did not effect you, so fearing them was superstition. And the last two being ideas similar to stoic ones, namely him saying that your own happiness should be based on generating a serene mentality, that cannot be effected by outside forces easily. Ataraxia is a Greek term used by Pyrrho and Epicurus for a lucid state of robust tranquility, characterized by ongoing freedom from distress and worry, when one managed to cultivate and maintain the proper persistent inner peace. This is similar to the stoic concept of apatheia (and a few times was even referred to positively by stoics) but is conceptually a little different. This is merely a statement of being at peace and lacking suffering and having happiness due to internal states. Whereas apatheia was a term for lacking detrimental emotions. (With an implied positive mentality stemming from it). So while the concepts closely overlap, they focus on different areas, because they in part were used to refer to different life goals. Aponia means the absence of pain, and was regarded by the Epicureans to be the absolute highest happiness. Noting that they thought that happiness was the absence of suffering, it was the state of zero suffering. Aponia as an absolute was seen as unlikely to be achieved, and more unlikely to be maintained. Ataraxia was good enough, but this was defined as the absolute perfection. Unlike ataraxia, this term was rarely used though. And the definition of happiness as only the absence of suffering falling out of favor since then, the concept is not often referenced now. Modern Inspirations As for modern variants, there are obviously a few. On the one hand, you have chaotic variants. Many modern satanic churches and some groups actively interpret him by the selfish interpretation. Many satanic churches say that you do not owe almost anything to anyone other than that they, like you be allowed to work individualistically for whatever they want, and if they get trampled underfoot, so be it. LaVeyans often call themselves neo-epicureans. Since it is easy to see how seeing only your own happiness as the value to shoot for in life, as well as friends and the social contract to be something you do for mutual benefit. They emphasize being realistic about how to achieve your own long term happiness like he did, albeit them erring more on the side of indulgence like cyrenaics. Of course, they don't actually advocate moderation like epicurus did, so its a strained association. However, the more interesting neo epicureans are on the opposite side. In the Renaissance, a few people tried to resurrect epicureanism to mix with Christianity. They skirted away from individualist hedonism a bit, but they ultimately said that they had a hard time arguing against an egoist to convince them to be moral without appealing to God. Ultimately one's ultimate highest happiness resides within God, and this is something one can only achieve by living a life of virtue, since God will reward the virtuous far more than any earthly rewards could be. However, these Christians were more neutral or dark / law or whatever than light law, since the people doing this most often were not trying to argue for new reforms to benefit the improvement of the world, but rather to explain the pre-existing ideology they already used with a new value system. They did however say that God's laws were in place since God too wanted people to be happy even on earth. So they believed that the religious rules they already had were the best way to maximize happiness. Inspiration on Utilitarianism This leads into the formulation of **utilitarianism** as a unique doctrine. The above christians did not necessarily think they were creating a totally new type of moral theory, but rather clarifying one that existed. Jeremy bentham took the idea of happiness as a metric for morality, and used it as a tool for political reform. And is considered the first modern utilitarian(http://i51.tinypic.com/2iaeotu.png). He openly referred to this as hedonism, but with the distinction that he was making it a universalist hedonism. Everyone's happiness was interchangeable, so your actions now had to focus on life in general, and improving happiness, rather than thinking you personally are in a unique place. John stuart mill expanded on this even further, in more obviously epicurean ways. He took epicurus' division of higher and lower pleasures. saying that one should focus on higher ones. Like epicurus, he said that virtue theoretically had no value of its own, but that it was important to cultivate. However, from a universalist perspective it is obvious why this is, because more virtue causes you to be more willing to do more for others rather than yourself. Something that epicurus saying that it was only your own individualist happiness one should focus on had trouble arguing for. Interestingly enough, he also pointed out that if you consider individualist hedonism an ideology about how to benefit the self, then the most direct interpretation of Jesus' command to love your neighbor as yourself would be universal hedonism, (or some form of analogue to it) with it being neutral where you put the benefits. The first utilitarians admitted that they weren't sure how to put it into practice, but early utopian socialists were inspired directly by bentham's work, some even studying under him on how to arrange a society ordered to maximize overall happiness. So a universalized idea of an epicurean value theory suddenly jumps to law, whereas an individualist one closely resembles chaos. (Bentham is also on record as saying that he would happily take away free will from humanity, if the result was that all their actions from then on maximized utility.) Other utilitarians like sidwick divided morality into individualist hedonisms, intuitionist morality, and universal hedonism. The middle one corresponding to deontology mostly in his mind. And its easy to see a case for these corresponding to the alignments, which makes it interesting that a hedonist value theory based on that one adjustment corresponds to both ends of the spectrum. Some forms of utilitarianism since that time have moved away from pure hedonism, defining other things as additional values, or changing the main one slightly, but in general it has never strayed too far from being a generally universalist hedonism.